


Of knights, barbarians, unicorns, and spilled milk

by LadyTroll



Series: Gloryhammer Reverse!AU [3]
Category: Gloryhammer (Band), Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Dark Fantasy, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Roleswap, a unicorn is mentioned, reversed Gloryhammer, some cursing is involved, that feeling when you finally put two and two together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:08:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21613576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyTroll/pseuds/LadyTroll
Summary: A day in the life of the local wrangler of the Hoots(man).
Series: Gloryhammer Reverse!AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1540978
Comments: 8
Kudos: 6





	Of knights, barbarians, unicorns, and spilled milk

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Gloryhammer reverse!AU](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/538978) by foxwinterart on tumblr. 



> Let it be known that I didn't intend to write this at first, but I couldn't find a place in the earlier works where I could slip in the horrible realization that's going to hit Ser Proletius now.
> 
> _________________________  
> Obviously, this is about the characters, in a reverse!AU at that, NOT the band itself.

In his accommodations in the eastern wing of the citadel of Dundee, right above the aviaries where the Knights of Crail kept their prized eagles in the occasion they visited on business, the Grand Master of said order was ready to pull his own beard out – and would have, too, had somebody promised him it was going to help solve the problem he currently faced.

Ser Proletius had spent most of his morning pacing about in the room, and it was truly a wonder he had not made a dent in the floor before he dropped onto the wonky construction that consisted of a chest and two chairs that had been shoved together a couple of days ago, to create something remotely bed-shaped, and covered with what had initially been his cloak, but was now a rumpled mess of cloth. Not that he had gotten much sleep afterwards. A nap, at best, and it had nothing to do with the questionable comfort the chest and the chairs provided, for right now he would not have been able to fall asleep even on the softest, largest bed in existence. 

The candles on the table had went out at some point in the morning, and he would have to find more if he wanted to continue with his research any time soon; there was an array of papers, parchments and books on the floor surrounding the sole bookcase in the room and, to top the mess off, something in that very patch stunk of spoiled milk – and the knight was not sure he wanted to find its source that was likely the leftovers from a breakfast – or had it been a dinner? – that the servant girl seeing to it that he had everything he might need had not taken away together with the tray, for some godsawful reason assuming an untouched cup of milk meant he might want to drink it later.

Things… were not going as well as he wished they would. Both the king’s soldiers and the Knights of Crail stationed in the City of Auchtermuchty turned out to be useless in terms of locating _one_ damned missing wizard, and neither threats nor promises had made them any more prone to actually finding the fugitive, making the Grand Master of Crail wonder if they, perhaps, cruised through the streets blindfolded. With the city having gone into a lockdown as soon as they realized they were one body short, the only thing they _had_ achieved was moving closer to an open uprising of the locals, and Ser Proletius was not sure that the city guard that had supported them during the raid, on the basis of gold and glory promised to everybody who did, would just as gladly support them and happily agree to oppress their own families in case of a revolt.

This was the first time Ser Proletius doubted the old Grand Master of Crail’s choice when he was proclaimed the successor to this title. It had been the greatest moment in his life: the moment he stood next to the old man in front of the crowd gathered and heard the news announced aloud for the rest of the order that he himself had only been informed about a dozen minutes before the assembly. At that moment, he had been certain he was going to lead the order to glory the likes of which it had not seen before, regardless of the sacrifices that had to be made along the way.

Sadly, soon after the knight had inherited the title, the king had fallen ill, and Ser Proletius, now the Grand Master Proletius, learned that your own ambitions, goals and skill meant nothing when you had to deal with an inexperienced youth with a crown and a hammer who thought he needed patience like an eagle needed hooves, supported by his ambitious spouse who was most likely behind the mysterious illnesses having struck a few of the royal advisors who protested the loudest and showed the least respect to the honourable couple.

It was a luck most of Proletius’ own goals aligned – to a degree, of course – with those of Prince Angus. Auchtermuchty had been one such goal.

And now that goal was the one to give him a headache.

In addition to all, that _unicorn_ …

It had been a gift, a well-meant symbol of truce and companionship, and now that symbol of truce and companionship was taking an unsupervised walk somewhere on the countryside, and the stable hands were just as close to locating the beast as they had been when it went missing in the first place, and Ser Proletius was well aware he was going to get chewed out by the gift-givers themselves – the very Questlords of Inverness – if they did not come across a trail soon enough.

Understandably, the Grand Master of Crail had been in a bad mood the last couple of days, and the situation did not exactly improve when, approximately an hour after he had located new candles and set his mind to work and work _only_ , the door to his temporary headquarters, slash, dining room, slash, bedroom, slash, breakroom opened, by the means of a heartfelt slam against the wall that made everybody currently in the near jump.

Some of the guards scurried through the corridors, looking for the source of the havoc, fearing the citadel might be under attack.

Ser Proletius, on his turn, glared at the approaching barbarian over his desk. The same desk which, in the aforementioned barbarian’s humble opinion, deserved the title of “a heap of paper” more so than it deserved to be actually called, a desk, for the actual piece of furniture was nigh invisible thanks to the pile of documents, city plans and maps currently adorning its surface, and the stacks of books and parchment scrolls neatly piled around it.

\- Something tells me, - the Grand Master of Crail sighed, deeply so, as the Hootsman dropped himself onto a long-suffering chair that creaked, solemnly, under the barbarian’s weight as if begging for either mercy or a quick death, - that you do not fully understand the situation we’re in right now.

Sadly, there was nothing he or anyone else _could_ do about “the situation they were in”, unless the wizard benevolently turned themselves in to one of the search parties. The Knights of Crail had been reduced to messengers within hours after their Grand Master’s ride back to Dundee and were now travelling between the citadel and Auchtermuchty, and Proletius himself would have happily moved to the by now infamous city, had such feat guaranteed even a glimmer of hope for a positive result. At the very least, he would then get away from this castle where Prince Angus’ unspoken message of “fail and lose your head” hung in the air all too clear for his liking.

As his (particularly shitty, irony-loving) fate would have it, Ser Proletius was, instead, stuck here with an uncaring, immovable ally currently in the process of breaking _his favourite chair_.

\- A whole city of peasants and merchants who won’t calm down, small groups of rebellion on the rise, goblin raiders, a magical fugitive on the loose who might or might not have a bone to pick with us, - the Hootsman saluted with the small growler he had, without a doubt, borrowed from the citadel’s supplies. – Did I miss something?

\- No, - Proletius paused, to dismiss the castle guard who had barged in just now, persuaded that the Grand Master of Crail was being ambushed by mysterious evildoers and in dire need of assistance. _At least somebody here was doing their job._ \- Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be here, drinking beer and breaking furniture.

\- Ah, live a little, baldie! Don’t tell me you seriously want to spend all your best years like there was a spear up you—

\- Prince Angus is breathing down our necks, and all you can do is sit around, drinking!

\- Oi, it’s not like I have anything better to do! I can’t chop people into pieces if there are no people for me to chop. I was thinking about chopping wood instead, but the blasted woodcutters have beat me to it. That leaves me with very little options.

\- Then go for a ride or something, maybe you’ll have more luck where the stable hands failed!

\- Oh, you should have said so right away that you’re still grumpy because that unicorn of yours left without saying goodbye, - the Hootsman waved him off, like the Grand Master of Crail were an annoying fly buzzing around him on a hot summer afternoon, and pretended he did not see the glare the knight shot him. – These things happen! My own horse once up and left me in the middle of nowhere’s arse! The cunt simply decided she didn’t like it there! I had to hike back home! Do you know how long that takes, in winter? Took me two days! I already thought the wolves had eaten her, tail and saddle included, but nope, came back to find her all snuggly in the stable! That shiny bastard of yours probably just needed some me-time; it’s not like any sane thief would go for a unicorn, you can’t even sell those glittery fuckers! What?

Ser Proletius stared at him, wide-eyed, as though the barbarian had just grown a second head, before he began rifling through papers currently on the table. Deeds, reports, copies of treaties with their allies, a couple of declarations of war, from particularly feisty neighbours who absolutely _did not_ like Prince Angus and Co. prancing all over their lands like they owned the place…

And there, the account that the stable hand (who had been fearing for his life at that moment) had been able to give on the matters with the lost unicorn…

The Hootsman’s eyes widened, a huge grin spreading on his face, as the normally collected and polite Grand Master of Crail began stringing together such brilliant epithets and displaying such extensive vocabulary even the sailors on the ship taking Hoots from Unst to Dundee would have turned blue with envy.

\- Slow down, slow down! – the barbarian snatched a paper and a quill from the table, the growler forgotten on the floor. – Can’t let such local wisdom go lost! One more time, from the beginning, please! What was that about the sheep?

\- The wizard! (“No, no, the _sheep!_ ”) – Ser Proletius was seething; had he had any magical talents, he might have just set something on fire. – It must be them! _“Got out of the bonds himself!” Pah!_ It’s the wizard!

\- Well, - the barbarian finished scribbling the last sentence on the paper; he was, without a doubt, going to bring this up later on, if only to attempt to learn where a _Grand Master of Crail_ might have studied the arts of such magnificent speeches, but there were more pressing matters to attend to now, - that means we can stop looking in the city. Your lads have already turned everything upside-down three times, and the folks are getting angry.

\- That means we only have _the whole of the kingdom to search!_ \- the knight was fuming.

\- See from the positive side! No more angry peasants! Speaking of which, - the barbarian scrunched his nose, disgust apparent on his face, - I really don’t want to be the one to ask, but when was the last time you aired this place? Smells like something died in here.

He scouted the room for the culprit, and, finally, the barbarian’s sight fell onto the lowest shelf of the bookcase where the cup that Proletius had failed to – or would rather not spot at all – stood in all of its rancid, smelly glory.

\- How difficult can it be to just tell them, you don’t want that, instead of letting it spoil? – the Hootsman swung himself out of the chair. – How long has this even _been_ here?

He had already crossed the room with the cup retrieved and, before the knight had had the chance to intervene, opened the window and promptly catapulted the contents of said cup outside. Ser Proletius facepalmed, as an angry voice shouted from below, followed by a “Sorry!” from the Hootsman, followed up by a string of curses from outside the politest of which was “hairy cunt”.

\- Oi, right back at you, pal! Well, what are you doing then, wearing all that shiny armour?! – following these words was a groan that expressed despair and suffering of unimaginable proportions as the Grand Master of Crail clutched his head and cursed that fateful day when he had unofficially been promoted to the Hoots wrangler. – Might as well paint a target on it! Hey, you don’t want me to come down there! Do you want me to come down there? I can come down there right now, you pompous prick! You bet I can! What? _What?_ Whom? _Me?_ Oh, you would like to do _that_ , wouldn’t you? – the barbarian pulled shut the thin curtain that did nothing to muffle the light or the sounds of somebody cursing up a storm outside and the sole function of which was to hang there and look pretty. – Can you believe this! The gall of some people, I tell you! So, now that _that’s_ taken care of, what now?

\- Please, please, just… leave me to my misery! – Proletius was ready to beg the barbarian, if all other means of persuasion failed. – I need to figure out where to start searching outside the city.

\- Two minds are better than one. Besides, the only alternative to me going on your nerves is me, _alone_ , in the basement, with the royal mead supplies. Got any special song requests, performed by yours truly?

\- Okay, okay, point taken, - judging by his facial expression, the Knight of Crail appeared to be haunted by a memory not just him but the rest of the castle as well would have all too keenly suppressed, was it not dead set on resurfacing at random times.

That epic tale was, indeed, long and much too daunting for anyone to attempt to relay in full detail. It should suffice to say that the barbarian of Unst and the castle’s mead supplies did not mix too well, particularly if both were left, unsupervised, in the same room. Unfortunately for most people involved, that was a fact they had only learned when the deed had already been done and they had a drunk and unpredictable Hootsman on their hands. His smallest offense that night had been off-key singing in the courtyard, under the pretence of “serenading the royal couple” (even though which one - the king and one of his lady friends, or the prince and the princess – remained a mystery wrapped in an enigma). From then on, it had befallen to Ser Proletius to keep an eye on the barbarian and to make sure Hoots was, under no circumstances, left alone in the basement, even though Proletius was fairly certain that, if the Hootsman _wanted_ to go somewhere, neither Proletius alone nor the combined effort of him, three castle guards and a draft horse could stop the barbarian from _going_ there.

\- That’s more like it! – the Hootsman, fully and unapologetically aware of what currently went through the knight’s head, fell back onto the chair (its legs bent suspiciously, but, surprisingly, the piece of furniture held) and unceremoniously appropriated one of the maps. – How far do you reckon can unicorns run, in one go?

Ser Proletius just made an exasperated gesture with his hands that was supposed to relay that he, indeed, had a very vague idea, if any at all, about such details.

\- Two times more than horses do, maybe? I’m not particularly a horse guy, let alone unicorn! I’m a Knight of Crail. I know about eagles, not… bitey white things with four legs and a horn dreaming to stab you in the gut!

Truly, Ser Proletius had no idea as to how fast or far could a unicorn run. He had never bothered studying them, save for superficial knowledge of “probably eats grass, likes apples and stabbing people”, since his main mount was a winged one that demanded head scritches and did not appreciate her feathers being pulled out by a saddle too tight. In addition, their acquaintanceship – for the lack of better word – had not started on the best terms imaginable, as the unicorn was not all too happy about playing the part of a gift, missing only a large pink bow around its neck to complete the picture.

Was it therefore any wonder that their first meeting had, in fact, led to the animal attempting to gut his new master, which had, on its turn, lead to security measures in shape of a cork ball stuck atop his horn at all times, just so he would cease trying to stab everybody who approached. Once the horn had been disarmed, there, however, still remained the biting problem, and the stable hands who had been left watching over the horses near Auchtermuchty had stubbornly insisted on means to keep the beast’s teeth – and, respectively, their fingers where they were.

The wizard could keep the beast, for all Proletius cared, were it not for a wounded pride added to an insult that somebody had slipped past his knights – the very best troops in the whole of Fife and Dundee.

\- I… take it that your first meeting didn’t go too well?

After receiving an unarticulated snarl as an answer, the barbarian – who had not been there to witness that legendary meeting – gave up on pleasant conversation and instead spent a moment studying the map he had snatched from the table, before whistling low.

\- A hell of a job we will have to get done.

\- And, - even the Grand Master of Crail was incapable of holding back a shiver, - we have to tell Prince Angus, too. _Again._

Uneasy silence settled over the room.

**Author's Note:**

> Ser Proletius, the Hoots wrangler, the wrangler of the Hoots. May the gods give him strength. He really needs it.
> 
> Just for the record: the news were smuggled into a report and read to the ''youth with a crown and a hammer'' when said monarch was in good mood. An old, precious crystal goblet was smashed later, but nothing else of interest happened.


End file.
